Sora and the Stranger
by Spheral3
Summary: Feeling down, Sora stays over night at the beach to sort his thoughts out, but what he didn't expect was an unexpected visit of a strange man. He leaves no foot prints in the sand, yet has seemed to walk a great distance through time. by Eden


Far, far away, on a distant planet that to you would look like any other twinkle in the vast night sky, sat a boy

Sora and the Stranger

By

Eden

Far, far away, on a distant planet that to you would look like any other twinkle in the vast night sky, sat a boy. He, like you, looked up at the shining stars, his gaze possibly passing over our little light without even realizing it, just as you do with his world. However, unlike you, the brave warrior had traveled to many worlds and had braved many adventures. He had braved the darkness in people's hearts and would find the little light that made everything all worth fighting for. He was responsible for the happiness and well being of all worlds, protecting them from evil beings and creeping shadows.

Sora was his name, please don't ask for his last name for I do think the young man would like his privacy. Sora was usually a happy and well-spirited boy who loved the idea of adventuring and making friends. Sora seemed to be comprised of the islands him self with tanned, sun-kissed skin, hair like that of a sea urchin— spiky and in all directions in the front, short and pointed in the back— with cerulean blue eyes that were as deep and playful as the ocean it's self. Sora was hardly ever caught without a smile on his face and something cheerful to say, he was the sort who made friends with everyone.

Tonight, however, this was not true. Sore gazed sadly up at the stars as he lay on the beach, his sun kissed skin warmly wrapped up from the cold night air by a black jump suit he wore. Belts needlessly dangled from the sides of his lower half and across his chest like an X. As Sora lay still on the beach, he looked up and recalled all the places he'd been and the people he had seen, all the friends he had made, along with all the enemies he fought. He remembered the first time he had met his companions, Donald Duck and Goofy, who had been sent to fight with the key bearer and ended up being two close friends of his.

Yet, despite all these happy memories, the thought of darkness still loomed in the back of his mind, unable to be pushed out of his head. He felt small compared to the number of dark beings called Heartless there was in the universe. The Heartless prey upon the dark evils in a being's heart, once they get a hold of the person they steal their heart and absorb it into pitch-black darkness where the heart of the person is forever lost. The person then becomes a heartless, another mindless drone of evil who looks for light to devour and darkness to hide in. Sora himself had once been a heartless, but a dear friend of his, Kairi, had saved him from the cold, dark being he had become. He heard her call out to him in time of need, and had answered by taking hold of his inner light and vanquishing other Heartless that had tried to harm her.

Sora might have escaped the darkness once, but he feared that he couldn't ultimately defeat it. He sometimes would lye awake and have thoughts of failure, of once more being lost to darkness with his friends and family to drown with him. Sora never showed it, but he too was afraid of the darkness.

The young man's thoughts continued to play through his mind like an old movie he had seen a dozen times. 'Can I,' he thought, 'can I protect everybody?' Sora took in a deep breath of the salty sea air and let it out. 'I don't know, not any more. I thought I could, but how can I?' gently the young man closed his eyes as he took in another whiff of the crisp air. 'I'm just… just so small, and the evil is so big! Will it ever be truly destroyed?'

"Excuse me, but I don't think you're suppose to be out so late, young man." Sora jumped at the sound of the voice. A man stood a distance away from him, on the dock where the row boats were usually tied up. The man wore black slacks, shiny black shoes and a red vest with a blue tie. He stood there looking at Sora with his hands in his pockets and a relaxed position.

Sora didn't know why or how this man found him. The young key bearer was on the beach of a remote island off the coast of the main Destiny Island, only his friends knew of this island.

"Oh," Sora replied after a pause, "yea I guess it is pretty late huh?"

"Midnight to be exact." said the man. Sora watched as the man in the red vest knelt down and dangled his legs off of the wooden dock. He hopped off and landed on his feet, the man's shiny black shoes now covered in sand, yet the man paid no mind and merely came closer to Sora.

The young man sat up in the sand and watched the man walk over, noticing the jet black hair neatly combed to one side along with a mustache on his upper lip. The man looked down to Sora. "You look like you've got something on your mind," he said, "Are you troubled?"

"Well, I guess you could say that…" Sora trailed off as he turned back to the open ocean. He felt the strange man sit down next to him a foot away, he too looked out across the sea.

"What's on your mind?" he asked. His voice was calm yet had a certain tone of command in it. Surprisingly and despite the tone, Sora didn't feel threatened by this man or even suspicious, in fact he didn't seem to mind at all the fact that a stranger had just walked up and sat next to him.

"It's nothing really," he paused for a moment. "Can I ask you something, Mr…?"

"You can just call me 'Mr.' for now." the stranger replied.

"…Mr., have you ever had a really big responsibility, but you weren't sure if you could handle it?" he asked. Sora expected the man to be puzzled by the question, or ask what he meant by it. He might even state that Sora was too young to know what real responsibility was, but the man had some what of an amused smile on his face, slowly nodding as he thought of how to answer.

"I've had my fair share of responsibility," he replied. "In the beginning I didn't know if I could keep anything running smoothly at all."

"What did you do, I mean, what did you run?" the young man asked.

"Oh, I ran a studio a long time ago with my best friend." he shrugged.

"A studio, huh?" could this man really answer Sora's question? And even if he couldn't why would he himself ask a stranger a question so deep? Even so, Sora once more sought an answer from this man. "Well, how did you handle it?"

"I had a friend there to help me with it. Even though we had big competition at the time, we believed that what we did was worth it, that our art was a good thing that people would enjoy."

"So you ran an art studio?" Sora asked. The man shrugged a shoulder and looked to Sora, the stranger's deep brown eyes had a twinkle of amusement in them.

"You could say that," he said. He continued, turning his gaze out to the dark horizon where ocean and sky touched. "My friend and I were up against giants, people who made their art for money and not for the people. We stuck together and continued to do what we believed was best though, drawing not to sell but to create."

"Really?" Sora had turned his full attention to this man and his story, his thoughts had been shoved out of his mind by this man's somehow compelling voice. He listened intently as the man continued.

"Yes, and soon we too grew almost as big as the giants. We were winning against those who told us we couldn't, those that scoffed at our art and called us armatures. Slowly the people were realizing how wonderful our art and stories were, so the studio continued to grow." he told the story with a calm and well paced voice as if the tale it's self were and epic legend that should be told with careful consideration to each word and how he said it. Sora was impressed by the stranger's story telling abilities and how easily he had been sucked in by the warm and comforting voice that told it.

"So the giants were like evil, and you were like the good?" Sora asked. The man gave another small shrug, as if to agree and not at the same time. "Tell me more, what happened next?"

"Well, soon my friend… he decided to leave the studio after an argument we had. I was alone then and didn't think I could make it on my own. I couldn't give in to something I didn't believe in, but I wasn't sure if I could run the company by my self now. We were pretty popular, and now I was alone against the other studios— who still looked like giants!"

"What happened?"

"I had to keep going, even though I was afraid I had to keep moving on ward and selling my art." he said. The stranger smiled, his gaze looking out to the many bright stars that twinkled and shined like tiny diamonds.

"And did you?" Sora asked, eagerly. He didn't know why, but some how he felt him self becoming stronger on the inside, it were as if his very life— his very existence depended on this man's success. The stranger slowly turned away from the stars, his brown eyes meeting Sora's blue eyes and locking.

"Patience, pace is the art of story telling." he said, amused. The man shifted him self in the sand and laid back on his elbows as once more he looked up to the vast ocean of lights. "I did keep going, and even though I was alone, I believed in my self. Soon I made it to the very top and…" he trailed off, his voice hushing to a whisper. Sora couldn't hear him very well at the last part, and was curious as to why the stranger had so suddenly stopped.

"Sir?" he asked. The man's gaze remained but a moment long to the distance in thought, his expression softened and reduced to almost a frown. The silence continued, and the only sound that could be heard was the gentle washing of the waves against the sand shore. Sora waited patiently, his knees now hugged to his chest as he sat comforterable waiting.

"Well, my boy, I have answered your question I believe. If you have a responsibility you think is to big, then it may be that it is." Sora's expression fell slightly from the answer, that's not at all what he wanted to hear. "But," Sora perked up a bit at hearing the stranger continue, "if you believe in your self and work hard, even the biggest responsibilities will seem worth tackling."

"So, what your saying is…" the young man sat up right, crossing his arms and legs and he began to think real hard and understand the man's explanation. "To not give up, just because something looks to big to handle?"

"Have you ever heard the expression, it's always darkest before dawn?"

Sora relaxed, laying on his back he looked out to the ocean. 'I guess,' he thought, 'all I have to do is believe. As long as I keep fighting then there's always hope.' he sighed to him self and felt at peace with his thoughts. The young man lay there for a while with the stranger, looking up at the sky and striking up a conversation about constellations.

Time passed by as they talked. Sora would share his stories of fighting off fierce enemies and beasts, while the stranger would tell him tales of grandiose magic that, strangely, would seem familiar to the boy. Soon their talk became silent, and Sora stared up in a new found wonder, in awe of the sights before him. "Say, Mr.," said Sora,"

"Hmm?"

"You ever wonder… how everything was made? All these planets and worlds and the universe it's self?" he paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts before beginning once again. "I mean, why are we here? What started light and darkness, good and evil, life and death? These worlds…"

"That's a pretty big question, but not a surprisingly new one at that." the man replied. "I too thought about it my self when I was your age."

"What do you think then?" Sora turned his head once more to look at the man, but he didn't return the gaze. Instead, the man sat up and slowly rose to his feet, looking up and away to the far, far off distances in space.

"I believe… that it all started with a mouse."

Sora looked to the distant horizon as he heard the answer; he scrunched up his face a bit at the thought of such a strange answer. "What do you mean Mr.… huh?" The man had suddenly disappeared! Vanished without a trace. Unnerved, Sora jumped to his feet and backed away, looking around for the footsteps in the sand that the stranger had made, but he saw that there were none, none at all, only his. 'Who was he?' Sora thought, 'Was that a ghost? No, maybe I was dreaming.' Sora looked back up once again to see every thing as it was the last time he had gazed up. Sora looked around, as if expecting an answer to fall out of the sky. A shooting star appeared out of nowhere and suddenly streaked across the sly, it's tail of light shined a brilliant gold and red while the head was the purest white Sora hadn't lied eyes on since he opened the door to light. Aghast, he watched it. Sora's lips parted as if to utter a sound of amazement, he stared in wonder at the star's sudden appearance.

It streaked across the sky and far off into the distance, meeting the rising sun. A thought crossed Sora's mind just then, a thought that strangely didn't seem to be his own, but rose within him and filed his entire being as he stood and watched the sun rise.

'_All your dreams can come true, if you have the courage to see it through.'_

-Walt Disney

The End


End file.
